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London was by far the most attractive place for overseas investors, with 69 projects opting to set up in the UK capital.

Sue Dawe, EY's head of financial services in Scotland, said: "Scotland's financial services industry has had a robust performance in terms of inward investment in 2016 but there are clear signals that Scotland cannot be complacent.

"The North West of England had a particularly strong year in terms of inward investment and managed to narrowly edge ahead of Scotland to rank as second most attractive destination for financial services FDI (foreign direct investment).

"While this does not predict any long-term trajectory of Scotland's ability to attract foreign investment, it does show that other areas of the UK are able to compete and we need to intensify efforts to maintain Scotland's market share."

Ms Dawe also stressed: "It is imperative that Scotland and the wider UK works to maintain its perceived attractiveness to foreign investors, especially now as Brexit negotiations begin to take shape."

Overall, the UK's financial services sector attracted 99 foreign direct investments in 2016 - an increase of 5% on the previous year and the highest total for more than a decade

Omar Ali, EY's UK financial services leader, said: "Despite the referendum on membership of the EU, UK financial services continued to attract record levels of investment last year.

"However, the outlook for 2017 and 2018 isn't so certain.

"We can see from our study that investors have concerns about what Brexit may mean for the future and they want greater clarity on corporate taxation and incentives for foreign investors."